


Entertainment

by AmyNChan



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Friendship, Normandy - Freeform, Other, Teasing, We love him though, X'D, Xenophobia, garrus is a snarky piece of snot, literally no romantic pairings I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 09:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15458523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyNChan/pseuds/AmyNChan
Summary: (Set in ME1)  After hearing "the most nonsensical garbage he’d ever heard in his entire life", Garrus decides to have a bit of fun with the Normandy's gunnery chief.





	Entertainment

Garrus remained quiet as he watched the commander walk by.  Shepard nodded to everyone in the garage, entered the elevator, and waited as the chinking metal door creaked to a grisly close.  Almost everyone in the bay watched the elevator’s impossibly slow ascent to the upper floor despite their respective tasks.

_Well_ , Garrus mused as he turned back to the mako.  _It’s not like everyone’s exactly **doing** anything_.

The krogan, scarred from multiple battles past and bitter from his and the commander’s chat, stood solemnly in the crook he’d found by the lockers.  Garrus didn’t miss the sharp glares the elder shot his way, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be too worked up over it.  At the end of the day, both of them were there to take down Saren.  And at the end of the day, they both realized they were on the same side this time.

He supposed he could even get along with the quarian, Tali, despite her naivete.  Honest to spirits, who in their right mind would believe a criminal would set up a meeting with their boss?  The girl was lucky she escaped with her life, even if she _did_ know how to work grenades and a shotgun.  And despite the amount of excited squealing he’d heard when she first went to the drive core, he knew that should they ever be on a mission together, she would have his back to the best of her ability.  He just wondered at times what that ability entailed…

But after what he just heard, he wasn’t sure he could trust the human to do the same.  Not the commander.  Shepard had been quite adamant in inviting him aboard the ship, even inviting him along several planet side excursions and missions that weren’t quite necessary to finding Saren, but the commander considered important nonetheless.  He didn’t necessarily understand the N7’s tactics at some points, but he respected Shepard’s diligence to getting the job done and the fact that every team member was included on these missions at least once.  No, no, the human in question was standing across from him next to the lockers, pretending she hadn’t just spewed the most nonsensical garbage he’d ever heard in his entire life.

Granted, he had heard a lot of murmurings aboard the ship about letting ‘aliens’ on.  He could understand some of their concerns from a strictly militaristic standpoint—that they were not Alliance personnel and they were on the Alliance’s most advanced ship.  Tali had unlimited access to the cutting-edge drive core, Garrus himself was constantly at the mako’s side, and Wrex…  Wrex just seemed bored with it all, so there should have been no issue with the krogan from the points she had been raising.  But to hold such strong sentiments against them simply because they were of different species?  It was foolhardy and just got in the way of the bigger picture and the job at hand.

To be honest, Shepard had treated the entire situation with far more tact and grace than he would have had he been in the commander’s shoes.  Garrus would have told Williams to just shut up and get the job done, that they didn’t have time for stupid things like racism.  But, in what was already becoming classic Shepard fashion, Williams did end up relenting on some of her…what did Shepard call them?  “Deeply held beliefs.”

_You say jump, I say how high.  You tell me to kiss a turian, I’ll ask which cheek_.

Garrus’s eyes flickered over to the Alliance chief, frowning at her choice of words.  He’d found the commander’s response hilarious, though he knew Williams had meant it as a worst-case scenario.  He didn’t find humans the most _attractive_ bunch of the lot, but he wasn’t about to throw shade at them like she’d done to make a point.

Gears began to turn in the turian’s mind.  It was doing him no good to get mad over it, so why not do something else instead?  Why not do something a bit more…entertaining?

“Something on your mind, Vakarian?” the chief asked.  It was then that he noticed her glaring at him, narrowed eyes and stiff shoulders with a gun in her hand.

Oh.

This could be fun.

Clearing his throat, he returned his eye casually to the clipboard in front of him.  “I have no idea what you mean.”

She didn’t buy it for a second and he knew it.  However, she didn’t pursue the conversation any further and Garrus knew he would have to time his next response perfectly.

In his peripherals, he watched as her shoulders gradually lowered, then waited for about five seconds.  Human body language was weird, but he knew soldiers.  And when a soldier’s guard had just fallen, it was the perfect time to annoy them.

“You know,” he stated languidly, pointedly looking at the board in front of him.  “I hear that asari are excellent kissers.”

He got the response he wanted, and then some.

“Get real, turian.”  Wrex’s gravelly voice was a somewhat welcome diversion.  “You’ve never been close enough to an asari to get any action, buried in all that red tape.”

Ouch.  Right where it stung.  Save his poor bleeding heart.

“Right.  And I guess mercenary work makes it easier.  Or having an extra set of everything.”

Wrex’s low laugh shook the metal of the bay around them, but Garrus found more victory in the fact that the chief was once again tense.  Irritated.  He refrained from grinning, especially when the chief was doing her best to stay calm when addressing them both.

“If you want have your bonding male time, do it in the mess hall.  I’m sure Lieutenant Alenko would love the conversation,” she said.  Every word was an attempt at calculated calm.  It was fun how miserably she failed at it.

“No, no,” Garrus corrected her, entirely serious.  “This is _alien_ bonding time.  You humans don’t get to be a part of it.”

As stated before, Garrus didn’t know too much about human body language, but he supposed becoming extremely tense and spluttering was a sign that he’d done his job well.

“You—that—that was a _private_ conversation!”

“Sure,” granted Garrus as he continued his work.  “About your blatant Xenophobia in front of the two aliens you were talking about.  Completely private and off the official records.”

He wasn’t sure if the grunt he heard from Wrex’s direction meant approval or a warning to leave him out of his fun.  Oh well.

“You aren’t human!” Williams hissed.  Well, whatever pale imitation humans could do of a hiss anyways.  “That’s just fact.  You aren’t Alliance and you aren’t on our side forever.  Don’t pretend that you’re ride or die for us.”

“You’re right,” stated Garrus.  He cast a lazy eye over to the gunnery chief, who had since put down her shotgun in frustration, safety on.  At least she did her job half-decently.  “I’m not human.  I’m a turian, and I’m damned proud of it.  And for now, we’re all on the same side, so I guess you’ll just have to fall in line like the rest of us and play nice with all the other boys and girls on this ship, now won’t you?”

A little saccharine for Garrus’s usual style, but it got the job done.  Well, half-done at least.  When Williams was fuming well enough, he decided to drop one last bombshell on her.

“And by the way.”  Williams looked ready to pop and he vaguely wondered if this would put her over the edge.  “They aren’t cheeks.  They’re maaaandibles.”

The excuse to stick his tongue out at her as far as it would go—which was incredibly long for humans, he supposed—was well worth it.  Williams stood in shock for a moment, shuddered visibly with an exaggerated sound of disgust, and whipped around to slam her hands on the weapons table.  She was defeated.

Garrus felt his laughter from the audible level all the way down to his sub vocals, said mandibles flaring out with his amusement.  Just as he returned to seriously work on the mako—the commander had his respect but she drove like a maniac—the door to the drive core opened and Tali’s head popped out from engineering.

“What’s going on in here?” asked the quarian, looking around for any semblance of help to decipher whatever part of the conversation she’d picked up on.

The only responses she got were a chuckling turian, an aggravated human, and a gravelly voice noting that the only thing going on was “Entertainment.”


End file.
